So, as expected, legendary tour promoter Michael Cohl has resigned as chairman of live music conglom Live Nation, and as CEO of Live Nation Artists, the newish division of the firm set up to manage their multi-million multi-dimensional deals with artists like Madonna and Jay-Z.
Cohl's departure was confirmed on Friday, after much speculation that growing tension between Cohl and Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino was making the former's position at the company untenable. In a bid to combat the rumors of a big falling out between the two top Live Nation execs both men took part in a conference call with US trade mag Billboard in which Cohl's resignation was confirmed. He will continue to advise the company on a consultancy basis.
Rapino positioned Cohl's new consultancy role as being more suited to his skills, telling Billboard: "One of the strengths of Michael Cohl is he's a big thinker, strategic, great with relationships, artists and big deals. That's what we want him to do, we don't actually want him to get caught up in the day-to-day of running of our division and all the bureaucracy around the operational part. We want him to go out and do what he does best for us and that's what we're back to doing".
Saying that "the moon and the stars" were behind the move away from a full time Live Nation role, Cohl seemed to agree that the Chairman and Live Nation Artists roles he has been undertaking of late just weren't right for him. He told the mag: "I've been giving people grief and making things difficult, and it was really all about I wasn't doing what I'm really good at. From my perspective it's much more about that than any of this nitty-gritty detail that anybody wants to talk about that's not relevant".
Cohl's predecessor in the Live Nation Chairman job, Randall Mays, is expected to return to the position, while the current boss of Live Nation Global, Arthur Fogel, will head up Live Nation Artists. Cohl's consultancy deal will run to 2012. As previously reported, he is already tied to a non-compete agreement stemming from Live Nation's purchase of his company CPI, a deal which gave Cohl his shareholding in the firm, and which first catapulted him into an executive role within the conglom. That is understood to run until 2016.
Most speculation regarding Cohl's departure centres on what it means for Live Nation Artists. Rumour has it that it was over the firm's 360 degree deal division that the two execs particularly clashed - Cohl reporting to Rapino in that relationship. Rapino claims that it is business as usual regarding Live Nation's plans to move into areas other than its traditional stomping ground of live music, though he added that it was always the intent to only sign four Madonna style deals at the outset - seemingly an attempt to counter rumours the firm is in negotiations with every legendary artist under the sun, and perhaps a bid to preempt assumptions that when only two more deals are done that that is somehow a slowdown of original plans caused by Cohl's departure.
Rapino confirmed they were close to adding a third major artist to the Live Nation Artists list, to join Madonna and Jay-Z. As previously reported, recent rumour has suggested that will be Shakira.
Specifically asked by Billboard about the rumoured tensions between him and Cohl, Rapino concluded: "Michael and I have had fights since the day I met him ... and he's always challenged me to make bigger and better decisions. We don't always agree, but that was never relevant to whether we would be having dinner together for the rest of our lives and having great respect and working together".